Saturday, March 17, 2012

Autocracy propped up by falsehood, intimidation and bribery

Throughout the world there is an unmistakable trend
of common people rising up against their autocratic overlords and tyrants. No
doubt there is a Divine decree that has gone forth that is behind this rapid
overturning of all dictatorships and the breakdown of political thuggery.

If the Ashram is a microcosm of the world and what
happens in it is a representative of the world outside, then the Divine Will,
as it manifests in the world, is also an indicator of what It seeks to achieve
in the Ashram as well. The writing is on the wall for all to see.

This issue can only be resolved if the average
Ashramite stands up and quietly, but firmly, rejects the stifling apparatus of
unaccountable and non-transparent autocracy propped up by falsehood,
intimidation and bribery, which the current management has foisted on them and
now seeks to legitimize in the name of the Mother, specifically by recourse to
the Trust Deed.

The true friends of the Ashram, as well as of the
trustees themselves, are those that speak out and call a halt to the suicidal
downward slide on which the collective has been accelerating under their
reckless and negligent misrule. A positive outcome of the current crisis in the
Ashram will surely constitute the next step in a virtuous cycle of more
transparent and better accountable governance of people throughout the world. Reply

Robert Wilkinson is misinformed when he says the Ashram
Archives "lists Heehs as one of its founding member". He is merely
repeating Heehs' false claim. In fact Heehs was originally one of 40
proof-readers of the SABCL publication unconnected with the Archives when it
was started. The Mother blessed two young men as the first researchers at the
Archives founded by Jayantilal Parekh. Heehs was nowhere in the picture. Since
Jayantilal headed both projects (Archives and SABCL), eventually after 1973 the
proof-reading group was folded into the already existent Archives. That is how
Heehs came to join the Archives as a proof-reader. By that time, the actual
researchers at the Archives (approved by the Mother) were already at work for
over two years

With a little bit of luckVancouver
Sun By DOUGLAS TODD, Vancouver Sun March
16, 2012 Is life just random chance? Or is it pre-determined, either by God or
by the inexorable laws of a mechanistic universe?

Going a bit further than O’Driscoll, some
spiritually inclined philosophers – such as Sri Aurobindo from India and
Hartshorne and others from North America – have taken to heart that the
universe is continually evolving.In the world’s process of becoming, they say
that “God” is basically the natural force that draws order out of chaos, out of
randomness. Like Aristotle, 20th-century philosophers and
scientists such as Charles Peirce, David Böhm and Robert Kane are convinced
there is more than spontaneity, accident or blind luck. There is also an
organizing principle. As Hartshorne put it, “Neither pure chance nor the
pure absence of chance can explain the universe.”

Even while rejecting the notion of an all-controlling
Designer of the Universe, Anglo-American physicist Paul Davies said new
“post-modern” science reveals that “an ordered universe is more than a gigantic
accident.” It contains purpose. The late Australian microbiologist Charles Birch
said it this way: “The post-modern discourse is that chance and purpose can
live together. Indeed, one is not possible without the other.”

Not absolutely everything is predetermined by cause
and effect, Birch says. Humans, and other sentient creatures, have some degree
of real free choice. In other words, randomness and directivity are
complementary. In life, especially in humans, Birch maintains there
is a fundamental “urge to live,” to “anticipate,” to seek “realistic hope.” The
creative power of the future, which some call “eros,” influences the world to
move toward greater richness of experience. Whether or not most people accept such cosmological
speculation about the evolutionary process, such ideas about inherent
purposefulness in the universe seem to back up David Foster Wallace when he
said, “I wish you more than luck.”

Poetry is the spiritual excitement of a rhythmic
voyage of self-discovery among the magic islands of form and name in these
inner and outer worlds. ~ Sri Aurobindo

In his poem, “Lines on Ireland”,
composed in 1896, Sri Aurobindo exclaims at the fall of Ireland:

How changed, how fallen from her ancient spirit!/
She that was Ireland, Ireland now no more,/ In beggar’s weeds behold
at England’s
door ...”

The seeds of fervent nationalism or patriotism,
which were to blossom over the coming decades, could be traced to his poem on Ireland. Sri
Aurobindo’s prescription for Irish redemption, was not a military strategy but
a return to its roots, self-introspection, deeper spiritual communion, revival
of its past glory and distinctive cultural identity. For the subjugation and
subservience of Ireland,
he doesn’t accuse the alien power but blames the enslaved state:

But thou to thine own self disloyal, hast/ Renounced
the help divine, turning thy past/ To idle legends and fierce tales of blood,/
Mere violent wrath with no proposed good.

The poet’s attack culminates in the line which
emphatically asserts:

How fallen art thou being ruled by these!

His personal frustration is a spontaneous
condemnation of a shameless surrender to foreign domination. As Shyam Kumari
rightly observes in the critical essay “The Spirit of Indian Nationalism in Sri
Aurobindo’s Early Poems”:

“It is a sweet journey to follow in the footsteps of
Sri Aurobindo’s early poetry and trace the first dawn of the Indian spirit.”

Sri Aurobindo’s entrapment in an alien culture did
not impede his quest for search of the traditional roots of Indian heritage.
His stress was on spiritual regeneration and rediscovery of the cultural roots
for an emphatic assertion of nationalist identity. Sri Aurobindo was influenced by Bankim Chandra
Chattopadhyay, who fused spirituality with nationalism in Anandamath. He
advocated a confrontational path for the sanyasis as their means of liberation
or nirvana.

Patriotism or nationalism is not alienated from spirituality. Cultural
self-discovery, especially the rekindling of inherent tradition and heritage,
has a sacramental dimension. The sanctity of the latter has to be preserved
against all odds. This is at the root of the spiritual resilience of a
nation against external subjugation. It is this spiritual empathy that Sri
Aurobindo celebrated when he described the novelist in his poem entitled
“Bankim Chandra Chatterji” as “The sweetest voice that ever spoke in prose.” In
his obituary lyric “Saraswati with the Lotus”, he evokes the muse of learning
and bemoans the sad demise of the author:

Thy tears fall fast, O Mother, on its bloom,/ O white-armed mother, like honey
fall thy tears;/ Yet even their sweetness can no more relume/ The golden light,
the fragrance heaven rears,/ The fragrance and the light for ever shed/ Upon
his lips immortal who is dead.

Spiritual heritage and individuality are intrinsic
to national identity. Sri Aurobindo started from this point and made
spirituality and nationalism concomitant like a glorious and invincible union
of the Ganga and Jamuna, thereby upholding the
sacred past and the “mighty godhead of Sanatana Dharma”. It is this spirit that
is echoed in the celebration of the sacrifice of the Irish nationalist, Charles
Stewart Parnell (1891):

O pale and guiding light.../ Thou too wert then a
child of tragic earth,/ Since vainly filled the luminous doom of birth.

Sri Aurobindo’s identification with Parnell and
correlation of India with Ireland
is distinctly clear in the following lines:

Deliverer lately hailed, since by our lords/ Most
feared, most hated, hated because feared,/ Who smot’st them with an edge
surpassing swords!

These early poems testify that Sri Aurobindo was
searching for an apt metaphor for his own Mother India. The general refrain in
most of these lyrics is a clarion call to regain the lost pride and glory,
which would pave the path for liberation from alien rule. Behind the guise of Ireland, Sri
Aurobindo revealed his concern for his own country. The mask however lies
uncovered, though in a different context altogether, in the poem “Night by the
Sea”:

Having resurrected the faith in his roots he became
acutely conscious of how he “had wronged” his “youth and nobler powers” by
“weak attempts, small failures, wasted hours”. The call for homeland and its
freedom is distinct and resonant.
CR Das once described Sri Aurobindo as “the poet of patriotism, as the prophet
of nationalism and the lover of humanity”. Among the poems that express his
sense of nationalism and quest for liberty, the most notable is “Baji Prabhu”,
a long narrative poem that eulogises the fortitude and valour of the Maratha
warrior against the Mughals.

Inflicted. And from time to time the gaze/ Of Baji sought the ever-sinking
sun./ Men fixed their eyes on him and in his firm/ Expression lived. So the
slow minutes passed.

The poem marks a remarkable blend of form and content.
Sri Aurobindo’s “Vadula”, first published under the title “The Mother to her
Son”, also explores the theme of valour and courage. The following
extract echoes the clarion call of Mother India to her children:

Shrink not from a noble action, stoop not to
unworthy deed!/ Vile are they who stoop, they gain not Heaven’s doors, nor here
succeed ~ When thou winnest difficult victory from the clutch of fearful
strife, I shall know thou art my offspring and shall love my son indeed.

The notion of the
Nation as Mother seemed a natural continuation of Swami Vivekananda’s evocation
of the goddess in the poem “Kali the Mother”. Written in Kashmir
in 1898, the poem was composed during his pilgrimage to Kshir Bhavani… Both
Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo advocated a massive upheaval for the
spiritual resurgence of the country and Shiva serves as a triumphant symbol of
such a spiritual revival. (To be concluded) The writer is on the faculty of the
Department of English, St Xavier’s College, Kolkata